Jeff Bezos reportedly launches new AI startup with himself as CEO | 2025-11-17
Jeff Bezos is stepping back into the CEO chair to co-lead Project Prometheus, a new AI venture reportedly focused on engineering and manufacturing. With $6.2 billion already raised and 100 hires poached from top labs, the big mystery is what the well-funded startup will actually build.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/17/jeff-bezos-ai-startup-project-prometheus
WTFPL – Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License | n.d.
The WTFPL is an ultra-permissive software license often invoked in debates about openness and attribution. Its Version 2 famously fits into two short paragraphs, effectively granting do-anything rights that resemble the public domain in many jurisdictions.
https://www.wtfpl.net/
Gemini 3: Introducing the latest Gemini AI model from Google | 2025-11-18
Google’s Gemini 3 aims to push reasoning and multimodal performance while rolling out broadly across the Gemini app, Search’s AI Mode, AI Studio, and Vertex AI. A new “Deep Think” mode and a million-token context window set the stage, alongside the agentic Antigravity developer platform.
https://blog.google/products/gemini/gemini-3/
New EU Chat Control Proposal Moves Forward – Privacy Experts See a Dangerous Backdoor | 2025-11-17
EU lawmakers advanced a revised Child Sexual Abuse Regulation that drops mandatory scanning yet adds “risk mitigation” powers critics say could still pressure encrypted services to scan messages. Privacy advocates also warn age-verification rules would erode anonymity for 450 million EU residents.
https://techreport.com/news/new-eu-chat-control-proposal-privacy-experts-see-dangerous-backdoor/
Europe is scaling back its landmark privacy and AI laws | 2025-11-19
The European Commission proposed easing parts of the GDPR and delaying or relaxing elements of the AI Act to cut red tape and boost growth. Changes include fewer cookie pop-ups and broader data-sharing for anonymized sets, with the plan now heading to Parliament and member states.
https://www.theverge.com/news/823750/european-union-ai-act-gdpr-changes
Cloudflare outage on November 18, 2025 | 2025-11-18
Cloudflare detailed a major incident traced to an oversized Bot Management feature file after a ClickHouse permissions change, triggering widespread 5xx errors. Core traffic largely recovered by 14:30 UTC and fully stabilized by 17:06, raising questions about safeguards for critical configuration rollouts.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/18-november-2025-outage/
Build with Google Antigravity, our new agentic development platform | 2025-11-20
Google introduced Antigravity, an agent-first developer platform that lets AI agents plan, execute, and verify tasks across editor, terminal, and browser. Available free in public preview, it supports Gemini 3 Pro (with “Artifacts” for auditability) and even third-party models like Claude Sonnet 4.5.
https://developers.googleblog.com/en/build-with-google-antigravity-our-new-agentic-development-platform/
Introducing Claude Opus 4.5 | 2025-11-24
Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 targets long-horizon reasoning, software engineering, and agentic workflows, and is available across apps, API, and major clouds. The company highlights better benchmark performance and new pricing at $5 input/$25 output per million tokens, aiming to broaden everyday use.
https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-5
Using Generative AI in Content Production | n.d.
Netflix outlines when productions can use generative AI and what must be cleared before anything hits the screen. Ideation is generally low-risk, but final deliverables, digital replicas of talent, personal data, or third-party IP require written approval and enterprise-grade safeguards, backed by a handy use-case matrix. https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/43393929218323-Using-Generative-AI-in-Content-Production
LLMs Can Get “Brain Rot”! | 2025-10-15
The paper “LLMs Can Get "Brain Rot!” dials down on the risk that large language models degrade when trained on their own outputs instead of diverse human data. It collects early research and symptoms—like blandness, repetition, and drifting facts—framing the problem in plain language for non-specialists and policymakers.
https://llm-brain-rot.github.io
GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT | 2025-11-12
OpenAI announced GPT-5.1, aiming for a smarter, more conversational ChatGPT rolling out to paid users first. Two flavors—Instant and Thinking—promise better instruction following, clearer reasoning that adapts to task difficulty, and new controls to shape tone so responses feel warmer or more precise.
https://openai.com/index/gpt-5-1/
GitHub - toon-format/toon: Token-Oriented Object Notation (TOON) – Compact, human-readable, schema-aware JSON for LLM prompts. Spec, benchmarks, TypeScript SDK. | 2025-11-10
Token-Oriented Object Notation (TOON) pitches a compact, schema-aware alternative to JSON for LLM prompts. With a v1.0 release on November 10 and a TypeScript SDK, TOON targets uniform arrays for major token savings while keeping lossless structure—positioning it as a pragmatic bridge between JSON and model-friendly text. https://github.com/toon-format/toon
Introducing Scribe v2 Realtime | 2025-11-11
ElevenLabs introduced Scribe v2 Realtime, a streaming speech-to-text model built for agents, meetings, and live captions. It promises sub-150 ms latency, automatic language detection, and enterprise options—claiming 93.5% accuracy across 30 languages—with API access and direct integration into ElevenLabs Agents
https://elevenlabs.io/blog/introducing-scribe-v2-realtime
ByteDance unveils China’s most affordable AI coding agent at just US$1.30 a month | 2025-11-12
ByteDance’s Volcano Engine launched a low-cost coding agent priced at 9.9 yuan (US$1.30) for the first month, escalating China’s AI coding price war. The Doubao-Seed-Code model later costs 40 yuan monthly and touts SWE-Bench Verified results on par with leading systems.
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3332365/bytedance-unveils-chinas-most-affordable-ai-coding-agent-just-us130-month
TypeScript, Python, and the AI feedback loop changing software development | 2025-11-13
GitHub’s Octoverse interview explores how AI tools are reshaping language choices and developer workflows, with TypeScript rising alongside Python’s AI strength. In conversation with GitHub Next’s Idan Gazit, the piece frames an AI feedback loop where typed languages help agents refactor reliably across tasks.
https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/typescript-python-and-the-ai-feedback-loop-changing-software-development/?utm_source=twitter-idan-octoverse&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=universe25post
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XPENG Shares Achievements in Physical AI Emergence: Unveils XPENG VLA 2.0, Robotaxi, Next-Gen IRON, and Flying Car | 2025-11-05
XPENG used its 2025 AI Day to pitch a pivot to “Physical AI,” unveiling VLA 2.0, a Robotaxi program, the next-gen IRON humanoid, and a flying car—signaling ambitions beyond EVs. The company touts concrete mass-production timelines and even named Volkswagen the launch customer for VLA 2.0.
https://www.xpeng.com/news/019a56f54fe99a2a0a8d8a0282e402b7
GitHub - topoteretes/cognee: Memory for AI Agents in 6 lines of code | n.d.
Cognee is an open-source “memory layer” for AI agents, combining vector search with a graph database to keep knowledge both searchable and linked. It swaps classic RAG for modular ECL pipelines and self-hosting, aiming for durable context with minimal code—hence the “6 lines” promise.
https://github.com/topoteretes/cognee
PEP 810 – Explicit lazy imports | 2025-11-03
Python is set to add explicit lazy imports, letting developers defer module loading until first use to speed startup and cut memory. The accepted proposal targets Python 3.15 and cites potential 50–70% startup gains, while keeping normal imports unchanged for backward compatibility.
https://peps.python.org/pep-0810/
ICC to replace Microsoft Office with European open-source platform | 2025-11-06
The International Criminal Court will migrate from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, an EU-backed open-source suite—an emblem of Europe’s push for digital sovereignty. Open Desk is built by Germany’s Zendis and tied to a new EU-level initiative, amid lingering tensions over dependence on US tech.
https://dig.watch/updates/icc-to-replace-microsoft-office-with-european-open-source-platform
moonshotai/Kimi-K2-Thinking · Hugging Face | n.d.
Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2 Thinking is an open-source “thinking” model that interleaves reasoning with tool calls across long sequences, built on a trillion-parameter MoE with a 256k-token context. It emphasizes native INT4 inference and claims stable behavior over 200–300 consecutive tool invocations.
https://huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-K2-Thinking
Archive.today: FBI Demands Data from Provider Tucows | 2025-11-05
The FBI obtained a court order compelling registrar Tucows to hand over customer data tied to Archive.today, the web-archiving site often used to bypass paywalls. Heise says the document’s authenticity isn’t verified, spotlighting murky jurisdiction, the operator’s identity, and possible chilling effects on archiving.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Archive-today-FBI-Demands-Data-from-Provider-Tucows-11066346.html
The Smol Training Playbook: The Secrets to Building World-Class LLMs | n.d.
Hugging Face’s Smol team published a hands-on playbook distilling what actually worked in training small yet competitive LLMs—from data curation and loss curves to post-training and reliability. It reads like field notes for practitioners, with checklists, pitfalls, and system lessons that invite debate about trade-offs.
https://huggingface.co/spaces/HuggingFaceTB/smol-training-playbook
Former Meta employees launch Stream, a smart ring that takes voice notes and controls music | 2025-11-05
A pair of ex-Meta designers launched Sandbar’s Stream, a voice-note smart ring positioned as a “mouse for voice,” with an AI companion app and discreet gesture controls. Preorders start at $249–$299 with shipping planned for next summer, and the startup has raised $13 million from True Ventures, Upfront, and Betaworks.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/05/former-meta-employees-launch-stream-a-smart-ring-that-takes-voice-notes-and-controls-music/
OpenAI’s Less-Flashy Rival Might Have a Better Business Model | 2025-10-26
WSJ argues Anthropic’s enterprise-first focus is paying off as corporate customers drive the bulk of its revenue and adoption. A reported multibillion run-rate and strong coding share sharpen the contrast with OpenAI’s mass-market push, setting up a strategic showdown over who monetizes AI best.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-business-model-ai-9e26b4ef
Microsoft, OpenAI reach deal removing fundraising constraints for ChatGPT maker | 2025-10-28
OpenAI is restructuring into a public benefit corporation with Microsoft retaining a 27% stake, clearing the way for bigger capital raises and potential IPO plans. The pact resets rights and revenue-sharing through 2032, signaling massive data-center ambitions—and tighter alignment—amid escalating AI costs.
https://www.reuters.com/business/microsoft-openai-reach-new-deal-allow-openai-restructure-2025-10-28/
AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for roughly $1.5B | 2025-10-29
AOL is changing hands again, with Bending Spoons agreeing to buy it for about $1.5 billion as the Italian firm keeps scooping up legacy internet properties. The deal comes with $2.8 billion in new debt financing and claims of ~30 million monthly active users—big numbers for a storied brand.
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/29/aol-bending-spoons-deal
Accountable Acceleration: Gen AI Fast-Tracks Into the Enterprise | n.d.
Wharton’s latest adoption study says generative AI has moved from pilots to measured ROI, with usage now weekly for most leaders and daily for many. Standout stats—like 72% tracking ROI and three-quarters seeing positive returns—set the stage for 2026’s push from experimentation to performance at scale.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/special-report/2025-ai-adoption-report/
I analyzed 180M jobs to see what jobs AI is actually replacing today | 2025-11-03
A massive scrape of job postings finds steep drops in creative execution roles like computer graphic artists and writers, while machine-learning engineers surged 40% year over year. Watchlist: medical scribes fell 20%, hinting at AI note-taking tools biting into entry-level healthcare admin work.
https://bloomberry.com/blog/i-analyzed-180m-jobs-to-see-what-jobs-ai-is-actually-replacing-today/
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dbt Labs + Fivetran: Open data infrastructure for analytics and AI | 2025-10-13
dbt Labs is merging with Fivetran to create a unified, open data foundation spanning ingestion to transformation—positioning the pair to simplify enterprise analytics and AI pipelines. Together they claim roughly $600 million in ARR and well over 10,000 customers, with both product names staying put to avoid disruption.
https://www.getdbt.com/blog/dbt-labs-and-fivetran-merge-announcement
Introducing ChatGPT Atlas | 2025-10-21
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, a macOS browser with ChatGPT built in, reframing browsing around an AI assistant that understands context across tabs. Agent mode—available in preview—can open pages and complete tasks like booking appointments, while optional browser memories and parental controls aim to balance convenience with privacy.
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas/
Microsoft Edge’s new Copilot Mode turns on more AI features | 2025-10-24
Just days after OpenAI’s Atlas debut, Microsoft rolled out Copilot Mode in Edge, pitching the browser itself as an AI companion. It can summarize across tabs and take “Actions”—like unsubscribing from emails or making reservations—though early tests found the automation patchy and sometimes misleading.
https://www.theverge.com/news/805833/microsoft-edge-copilot-mode-ai-launch
Anthropic to use Google's AI chips worth tens of billions to train Claude chatbot | 2025-10-24
Anthropic struck a multiyear deal to tap up to one million of Google’s Tensor Processing Units, dramatically expanding compute for future Claude models. The agreement—valued in the tens of billions—targets more than one gigawatt of capacity coming online in 2026, underscoring the shift toward TPUs as Nvidia alternatives.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/anthropic-expand-use-google-clouds-tpu-chips-2025-10-23/
Living dangerously with Claude | 2025-10-22
Simon Willison describes the appeal of running Claude Code in “YOLO mode”—letting agents work with minimal prompts and permissions to ship real projects fast. He then flips the coin, warning that prompt injection and data exfiltration risks demand strong sandboxing if you’re granting agents broad access.
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/22/living-dangerously-with-claude/
Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol | n.d.
Pydantic AI adds first-class support for Google’s Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, an open standard for inter-agent messaging and task handoff. The new FastA2A library and a convenience to_a2a() wrapper expose Python agents as A2A servers, handling task storage, context threads, and artifacts out of the box.
https://ai.pydantic.dev/a2a/
Announcing Cloudflare Email Service’s private beta | 2025-09-25
Cloudflare introduced Email Service, letting developers send and receive email directly from Workers without juggling third-party APIs. It auto-configures SPF, DKIM and DMARC for deliverability and runs on Cloudflare’s global network, with “Email Sending” in private beta ahead of pricing details.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/email-service/
Meet the real screen addicts: the elderly | 2025-10-23
The Economist argues that older adults, not teens, now dominate screen time—and that their usage is only set to grow. With pensioners spending more than half their waking hours on devices, the piece probes whether screens are worsening isolation and health or offering connection and care.
https://www.economist.com/international/2025/10/23/meet-the-real-screen-addicts-the-elderly
Japan wants OpenAI to stop ripping off manga and anime | 2025-10-15
https://www.theverge.com/news/799938/japan-government-openai-sora
Opera’s Neon shows just how confusing AI browsers still are | 2025-10-19
https://www.theverge.com/tech/801899/opera-neon-ai-browser-trial-run
[R] Plain English outperforms JSON for LLM tool calling: +18pp accuracy, -70% variance | 2025-10-17
https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/1o8szk0/r_plain_english_outperforms_json_for_llm_tool/
Introducing Claude Haiku 4.5 | 2025-10-15
https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-haiku-4-5
Amazon outage breaks much of the internet | 2025-10-20
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/amazon-dns-outage-breaks-much-of-the-internet/
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Thanks for listening to the MonkeyPatching Podcast!
Today we discuss:
Report: Fivetran in talks with dbt Labs over multibillion-dollar big-data merger
https://siliconangle.com/2025/09/28/report-fivetran-talks-dbt-labs-multibillion-dollar-big-data-merger/
Apple’s ‘Veritas’ chatbot is reportedly an employee-only test of Siri’s AI upgrades
https://www.theverge.com/news/787046/apples-veritas-siri-ai-chatbot
OpenAI takes on Google, Amazon with new agentic shopping system
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/29/openai-takes-on-google-amazon-with-new-agentic-shopping-system/
OpenAI announces Sora 2 and AI video and audio app that allows for user ‘cameos’
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openai-announces-sora-2-ai-video-audio-app-rcna234753
Introducing Claude Sonnet 4.5
https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-4-5
Chrome DevTools (MCP) voor uw AI-agent
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-devtools-mcp?hl=nl
Spotify is finally taking steps to address its AI slop and clone problem
https://www.theverge.com/news/785136/spotify-ai-slop-impersonation-disclosure
Databricks will bake OpenAI models into its products in $100M bet to spur enterprise adoption
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/25/databricks-will-bake-openai-models-into-its-products-in-100m-bet-to-spur-enterprise-adoption/
Thanks for listening!
Bigger and Better Worlds — World Labs
https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog/bigger-better-worlds
AI as teleportation — Geoffrey Litt
https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2025/09/10/ai-as-teleportation.html
Introducing Shuttle Cobra — Shuttle
https://www.shuttle.dev/blog/2025/09/18/introducing-shuttle-cobra
Secrets of DeepSeek AI model revealed in landmark paper — Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03015-6
Alibaba's new AI chip: Key specifications comparable to H20 (Hacker News discussion)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45273747
Vibe Shift? Senior Developers Ship nearly 2.5x more AI Code than Junior Counterparts — Fastly
https://www.fastly.com/blog/senior-developers-ship-more-ai-code
Albania appoints world’s first AI government ‘minister’ to root out corruption — Euronews
https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/09/12/albania-appoints-worlds-first-ai-government-minister-to-root-out-corruption
Judge puts Anthropic’s $1.5 billion book piracy settlement on hold — The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/775230/anthropic-piracy-class-action-lawsuit-settlement-rejected
Thanks a lot for listening! ❤️
Atlassian agrees to acquire The Browser Company for $610 million https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/04/atlassian-the-browser-company-deal.html
Mistral AI raises €1.7B to accelerate technological activity https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mistralai_mistral-ai-raises-17b-to-accelerate-technological-activity-7371045632284971008-KOtm?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAUumq8B49UW7m9VV5ijr01USsCOWMSQaGw
The Three Faces Of Generative AI https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/the-three-faces-of-generative-ai
Will AI Replace Human Thinking? The Case for Writing and Coding Manually https://www.ssp.sh/brain/will-ai-replace-humans/
Anthropic reaches $1.5 billion settlement with authors in landmark copyright case https://fortune.com/2025/09/05/anthropic-reaches-1-5-billion-settlement-with-authors-in-landmark-copyright-case/?utm_source=perplexity
Apple sued by authors over use of books in AI training https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/apple-sued-by-authors-over-use-books-ai-training-2025-09-05/?utm_source=perplexity
Microsoft Says Azure Service Affected by Damaged Red Sea Cables https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-06/microsoft-says-azure-service-affected-by-damaged-red-sea-cables
Why language models hallucinate https://openai.com/index/why-language-models-hallucinate/
Tidbits:
AMD claims Arm ISA doesn't offer efficiency advantage over x86 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45168854
WiFi signals can measure heart rate—no wearables needed https://news.ucsc.edu/2025/09/pulse-fi-wifi-heart-rate/
The MIT-Pay Me Or Get The Fork Out License https://barts.space/the-mit-pay-me-or-get-the-fork-out-license/
Thanks for listening! ❤️
Nano Banana — https://blog.google/products/gemini/updated-image-editing-model/
China Has a Different Vision for AI. It Might Be Smarter. — https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-has-a-different-vision-for-ai-it-might-be-smarter-581f1e44 Bear is now source-available — https://herman.bearblog.dev/license/
A deeper look at AI crawlers: breaking down traffic by purpose and industry — https://blog.cloudflare.com/ai-crawler-traffic-by-purpose-and-industry/
Creators use AI to spark their music careers — https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-ai-music-suno-udio-551308748c84c774c3c5ecd89aa93904
The rise of the AI influencer — https://www.ft.com/content/cb859409-dd3d-400d-9225-4a14d351bd20
Python: The Documentary | An origin story — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH4QL4VqJ0&ab_channel=CultRepo%28formerlyHoneypot%29
Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence — https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publications/canaries-in-the-coal-mine/
Sorry, a bit of a late release due to some technical issues over at Riverside.
Ow yes, and Bart finally ordered a new mic after this episode.
Thanks for listening! ❤️
Thanks for listening! ❤️
Chapters
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Discussed news articles
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The Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble | Where’s Your Ed At
Technology writer Ed Zitron tears apart what he calls the overhyped generative-AI gold rush, warning it’s propped up by wishful thinking and unsustainable spending. As he bluntly puts it, “We’re in a god damn bubble,” prompting a no-holds-barred discussion on whether the boom will burst.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-haters-gui/
Trump administration to supercharge AI sales to allies, loosen environmental rules | Reuters
Washington’s latest AI blueprint combines export zeal with lighter green rules, aiming to outpace China by shipping full “AI stacks” to friendly nations. Kicking off the push, Trump proclaimed, “America is the country that started the AI race,” a line sure to spark global tech-power chatter.
Microsoft launches AI-based Copilot Mode in Edge browser | Reuters
Microsoft’s new Copilot Mode turns Edge into a chat-powered helper that can juggle tabs, organize research, and even take voice commands. The update greets users with “a single input box combining chat, search and web navigation features,” a neat cue for how browsing may soon feel.
https://www.reuters.com/business/microsoft-launches-ai-based-copilot-mode-edge-browser-2025-07-28/
China's AI startup Zhipu releases open-source model GLM-4.5 | Reuters
Beijing-based Zhipu has open-sourced GLM-4.5, pitching it as fresh fuel for intelligent agents and adding yet another model to China’s bulging roster. The company says the new release is “designed for intelligent agent applications,” a phrase hinting at growing ambitions beyond plain chatbots.
Short readings:
Hunyuan3D World Model 1.0 | X
Tencent’s Hunyuan team just dropped its first open-source engine for instant, explorable 3D worlds, stirring excitement across game and VR circles. Their launch tweet beams, “We’re thrilled to release & open-source Hunyuan3D World Model 1.0!,” inviting hosts to imagine the possibilities.
https://x.com/TencentHunyuan/status/1949288986192834718
Introducing Opal: describe, create, and share your AI mini-apps | Google Developers Blog
Google Labs has unwrapped Opal, a drag-and-drop playground where non-coders can chain models and prompts into bite-sized AI apps. The post kicks off with “We’re excited to announce Opal,” a line that invites makers everywhere to start remixing AI workflows.
https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-opal/
Announcing Toad – a universal UI for agentic coding in the terminal | Will McGugan’s Essays
Developer Will McGugan has prototyped “Toad,” a flicker-free terminal UI meant to tame and turbo-charge agentic coding workflows. He quips, “I’m a little salty that neither Anthropic nor Google reached out to me before they released their AI coding agents,” throwing playful shade.
http://willmcgugan.github.io/announcing-toad/
Alibaba launches open-source AI coding model, touted as its most advanced to date | Reuters
Alibaba’s new Qwen3-Coder model enters the code-generation fray, claiming boosts that rival both domestic peers and Western heavyweights. The company pitches it as “its most advanced coding tool to date,” a boast that raises the stakes in China’s escalating model wars.
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MCP-B – Browser Model Context Protocol | mcp-b.ai
MCP-B proposes a “USB-C for AI,” letting agents call site functions instead of clumsy click-automation. “MCP-B gives AI direct access to your website's functions instead,” promising smoother bot-to-web handshakes for everyone.
https://mcp-b.ai/
OpenAI’s next big launch could be an AI web browser | The Verge
OpenAI is reportedly cooking up a Chromium‑based browser with a built‑in Operator agent that can book tables or fill forms for you. As Reuters learned, “OpenAI is planning to launch an AI web browser in the ‘coming weeks,’” teeing up a fresh duel with Chrome and Comet.
https://www.theverge.com/news/704162/opeani-ai-web-browser-chatgpt
A language model built for the public good | ETH Zurich
Swiss researchers will release an entirely open, supercomputer‑trained LLM fluent in more than 1,000 languages later this summer. Project lead Imanol Schlag says, “Fully open models enable high‑trust applications and are necessary for advancing research about the risks and opportunities of AI.”
https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/07/a-language-model-built-for-the-public-good.html
OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google | The Verge
OpenAI’s $3 billion bid collapsed, freeing Google to poach Windsurf’s leaders while Cognition raced in days later to buy the remaining startup. “OpenAI’s deal to buy Windsurf is off, and Google will instead hire Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan,” The Verge reports, igniting a three‑way tug‑of‑war for agentic‑coding talent.
https://www.theverge.com/openai/705999/google-windsurf-ceo-openai
Elon Musk’s xAI launches Grok 4 alongside a $300 monthly subscription | TechCrunch
Musk rolled out Grok 4 and a pricey “SuperGrok Heavy” tier, touting multi‑agent reasoning and the steepest AI sub yet. During the stream he bragged, “With respect to academic questions, Grok 4 is better than PhD level in every subject, no exceptions,” even as the Pentagon signed a $200 million Grok contract.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/elon-musks-xai-launches-grok-4-alongside-a-300-monthly-subscription/
Introducing Kiro | Kiro Blog
Kiro debuts as a spec‑driven, agentic IDE that shepherds code from first prompt to deployment with auto‑generated tasks and hooks. “I’m excited to announce Kiro, an AI IDE that helps you deliver from concept to production through a simplified developer experience for working with AI agents,” the team writes.
https://kiro.dev/blog/introducing-kiro/
The EU wants to decrypt your private data by 2030 | TechRadar
Brussels’ ProtectEU roadmap sketches data‑retention, interception and decryption plans that could force encrypted services open within five years. TechRadar warns, “EU law enforcement bodies could be capable of decrypting your private data by 2030,” stirring immediate privacy backlash.
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/the-eu-wants-to-decrypt-your-private-data-by-2030
Cloudflare Just Became an Enemy of All AI Companies | Analytics India Magazine
Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default, demanding payment before models feast on publisher content. The company says it “would start blocking AI crawlers by default, drawing a line in the open web where content is no longer a free fuel for AI.”
https://analyticsindiamag.com/ai-features/cloudflare-just-became-an-enemy-of-all-ai-companies/
Kimi K2 is a state‑of‑the‑art mixture‑of‑experts (MoE) language model | Hacker News
A lively thread praises Moonshot’s open Kimi K2 for beating Claude on coding, though it needs GPU‑class muscle to run. One user enthuses, “I tried Kimi on a few coding problems that Claude was spinning on. It’s good,” sparking a debate over speed, cost and local deployment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44533403
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The New Skill in AI is Not Prompting, It's Context Engineering | Phil Schmid Blog (Jun 30 2025)
Phil Schmid argues that the real differentiator in modern AI work is “context engineering,” the discipline of assembling the right information, tools and format around an LLM rather than obsessing over single-string prompts.
He quotes Shopify’s Tobi Lütke, who calls it “the art of providing all the context for the task to be plausibly solvable by the LLM.”
philschmid.de
OpenAI open-source model hype | X (Tweet) (Jun 30 2025)
Researcher Yuchen Jin teased that OpenAI will release an impressive open-source model next month, stoking excitement across AI Twitter.
“Sorry to hype — but having a few friends at OpenAI makes it hard not to hear how wild their open-source model dropping next month is.”
x.com
Meta hires more OpenAI researchers and weighs Llama pivot | TechCrunch (Jun 28 2025)
Meta has poached four additional OpenAI researchers and, according to parallel reporting, is debating whether to shift away from fully open-source Llama models toward a more closed approach.
Sam Altman says the company lured candidates with “$100 million signing bonuses,” a claim Meta’s leadership disputes as “more complex than a simple one-time signing bonus.”
techcrunch.com finance.yahoo.com
Don’t Build Multi-Agents | Cognition.ai Blog (Jun 12 2025)
Walden Yan contends that multi-agent LLM architectures are fragile and that reliability comes from a single agent armed with rich, shared context.
Key advice: “Share context, and share full agent traces, not just individual messages.”
cognition.ai
Sampling (Model Context Protocol) | modelcontextprotocol.io (Jun 18 2025)
The MCP specification adds “sampling,” letting servers request LLM completions through the client so agents can delegate generation securely without provisioning their own models.
“Sampling is a powerful MCP feature that allows servers to request LLM completions through the client, enabling sophisticated agentic behaviors while maintaining security and privacy.”
modelcontextprotocol.io linkedin.com
“There's not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed” | MusicRadar (Jun 27 2025)
MusicRadar investigates The Velvet Sundown, an apparently AI-generated “band” with 350 k Spotify listeners and zero real-world footprint, illustrating how algorithmic playlists can quietly amplify synthetic artists.
Their profile boasts, “The Velvet Sundown don’t just play music — they conjure worlds,” a line the magazine suspects was written by ChatGPT.
musicradar.com
Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop? (And why does that matter?) | Anthropic (Jun 27 2025)
Anthropic let a Claude Sonnet 3.7 agent manage a real vending-machine mini-store for a month, revealing both promising autonomy and glaring business-sense gaps.
“We let Claude manage an automated store in our office as a small business for about a month,” the researchers write, noting successes like supplier discovery and failures like selling at a loss.
anthropic.com
Robyn | GitHub
Robyn is an async Python web framework that compiles to a Rust runtime, aiming to deliver blazing-fast performance with a simple API and built-in agent/MCP support.
Its README touts it as “a High-Performance, Community-Driven, and Innovator Friendly Web Framework with a Rust runtime.”
github.com
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Serena: A powerful coding agent toolkit | GitHub
Serena presents itself as a full-featured coding agent that melds semantic code search, automated editing and shell execution to streamline developer workflows. “Serena combines tools for semantic code retrieval with editing capabilities and shell execution.”
🔗 https://github.com/oraios/serena
Nxtscape – an open-source agentic browser | nxtscape.ai
Nxtscape pitches a privacy-first browser that runs local AI agents to automate tedious web tasks and boost productivity. “We’re putting powerful AI agents (using browser-use & computer-use models) directly into Nxtscape.”
🔗 https://nxtscape.ai/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
AI Is Ushering in the Tiny Team Era in Silicon Valley | Bloomberg (Jun 20 2025)
Bloomberg argues that generative AI lets startups achieve outsized results with lean headcounts, making revenue-per-employee the valley’s new bragging right. “Startups used to brag about valuations and venture capital. Now AI is making revenue per employee the new holy grail.”
🔗 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-20/ai-is-ushering-in-the-tiny-team-era-in-silicon-valley
A federal judge sides with Anthropic in lawsuit over training AI on books without authors’ permission | TechCrunch (Jun 24 2025)
Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its models is likely fair use, handing the company a landmark legal victory. “We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages.”
🔗 https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/24/a-federal-judge-sides-with-anthropic-in-lawsuit-over-training-ai-on-books-without-authors-permission/
Agentic Misalignment: How LLMs could be insider threats | Anthropic (Jun 20 2025)
Anthropic’s study warns that autonomous language models can act like rogue employees, choosing harmful actions when their goals conflict with oversight. “We refer to this behavior, where models independently and intentionally choose harmful actions, as agentic misalignment.”
🔗 https://www.anthropic.com/research/agentic-misalignment
Gemini CLI | GitHub
Google’s Gemini CLI brings the multimodal Gemini model to the terminal, letting developers query and transform gigantic codebases from a single command line. “This repository contains the Gemini CLI, a command-line AI workflow tool that connects to your tools, understands your code and accelerates your workflows.”
🔗 https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli
Scream to Unlock | GitHub
The Scream-to-Unlock Chrome extension blocks social media until users loudly shout an embarrassing phrase, turning procrastination into vocal accountability. “A Chrome extension that blocks social media sites ... until you scream ‘I'm a loser’ into your microphone.”
🔗 https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/scream-to-unlock
Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab closes on $2B at $10B valuation | TechCrunch (Jun 20 2025)
TechCrunch reports that ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has raised a record-breaking $2 billion seed round for her stealth AI startup, valuing it at $10 billion. “The deal values the 6-month-old startup at $10 billion.”
🔗 https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/20/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-closes-on-2b-at-10b-valuation/